


Preponderance

by 9_miho



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Kink Meme, Mycroft's Umbrella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2762087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_miho/pseuds/9_miho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Mycroft meets Arthur Kirkland is at university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preponderance

The first time Mycroft meets Arthur Kirkland is at university.

There are calluses on those thin hands that Mycroft notes immediately. There are multiple patterns, all overlapping each other. Remnants of blisters on the thumb and forefinger from needlework, a mat on the palms from fencing with crisscrossing lines from rope burns, a history of fine and coarse labor lay out on that strong little hand.

Kirkland speaks with a careful Oxford accent, a good one but an affectation nonetheless. He drawls the ends of some of his words, pauses a little too often to reconsider some careless slip of slang. It’s a curious mix, the mark of a man with social pretensions, whether to above or below the salt remains to be seen.

The man is- small. He is of middling height but something about him makes him seem small. Not inconspicuous, not shy or retiring. The man’s limbs are wiry and perhaps that gives the impression of a small size, a compression, a wound-up constitution behind those slender nervous hands and wide eyes in a sharp-featured face, a blocked-up pent-up energy that rebounds on itself, stays _in potentia_ and just waits, gathering tension by the moment until something breaks.

Whatever he is, whoever he is, the fact pattern goes this way and that, lending itself to whimsy instead of concrete conclusions, and it irritates Mycroft.

But at the end, Kirkland gives him a long look over the rim of his wine glass and his thin, pale lips quirk.

“Spinning stories, Mister Holmes?” he murmurs, wry mirth gleaming in those wide green eyes.

.

Kirkland’s left knee clicks every three steps. He uses his wood handled umbrella as support for those occasional little stumbles but otherwise he swings it this way and that, as if sweeping the street before him. Whatever little charm he casts works and the crowds don’t seem quite as thick as the two men walk briskly across Lambeth Bridge.

Mycroft is twenty-four and he’s been told at this point that the slender man with him is the personification of his country, all two thousand odd years of history and geography and wars and conquests and class scrambles and cultural revolutions. This cantankerous fellow who smokes hand-rolled cigarettes and drinks sweet milky tea by the gallon, who does the morning crosswords and always snorts at the state of the youth these days, who sometimes looks up and looks straight ahead or right over his shoulder at nothing in particular before going back to whatever he was doing. He sucks on toffees and carries a top-of-the-line mobile, walks like a soldier and does needlepoint.

“I cheated,” says Kirkland-England-quite calmly.

“Undoubtedly,” murmurs Mycroft.

Kirkland laughs his wry little laugh, the one he uses when he savoring a conceit, like marveling at his own cleverness. He glances at Mycroft. “Think of it when you take everything, everyone in.” He gesticulates by raising the tip of his umbrella slightly and swinging it left and right. “When all that signal floods into that finely tuned brain of yours behind those little eyes, and you filter the noise so well, so astutely, so elegantly.”

“How eloquently put,” says Mycroft dryly.

Kirkland smiles a thin little smile. “Think of never having to think about filter it, think of getting everything in a neat dossier by the finest clerk. All those pages fitted into your brain, all those facts marshaled like soldiers rank and file too. A library opening to you at your touch and call, with new additions every second, an unending archive.”

Mycroft merely arches an eyebrow. Kirkland’s smile grows thinner, sharper. “Think of never forgetting it. Of every single line. Every single footnote. And the pages just keep coming until they are around your ears.”

Mycroft snorts by way of answer, unimpressed. Kirkland sighs. “Warnings are wasted on the young,” he grumbles. He raises his umbrella in one smooth movement, the point just missing scraping the back of a young woman ahead of them. The big black dome opens just in time as gray skies open up and sends a deluge.

He looks sidelong at Mycroft as raindrops pelt the black vinyl protecting them. “By and by, do stop using government resources to play silly buggers with your brother,” he adds, as an afterthought. “Your supervisor is facing some rather troublesome inquiries as is.”

Mycroft smiles. “Hardly with my assistance,” he replies.

“You cheat at chess so that is hardly an apt metaphor for your particular activities in the office,” says Kirkland. “Or perhaps it does. I’m supposing he made a particularly nasty remark about your weight again.”

Mycroft looks ahead, not meeting the wry green eyes. “An irrelevant observation may have been involved.”

Kirkland snorts inelegantly but otherwise doesn’t comment further. He leaves his sodden umbrella in Mycroft’s office and never comes back for it.

Mycroft starts using it and every so often, he swings it this way and that as he walks and takes to leaning on it when waiting, just as Kirkland does. He finds that it helps him think better.

-

“What to get a boy who has everything?” murmurs Mycroft to a tray of buttery soft leather wallets. “Shy of social graces, humility and fraternal affection?”

Kirkland snorts. “And why are you bothering?”

“Because Mum would be upset if I show up with nothing and it’s not worth upsetting her this time of year.” Mycroft drums his fingers along the edges of the gleaming glass counter. “No. These won’t do.” They wander the many counters as Mycroft discards Kirkland’s half-hearted suggestions of watches, keychains, cologne and ties.

Mycroft knows that it had to have been some sort of unpardonable offense for dragging one’s country along on an impromptu shopping expedition, particularly when said country had only just dropped into the office to pick up a dossier. But it would was the last chance he had to pick up something and the only hour he really had free and really, it wasn’t because he needed to get away from a building of madmen with silly problems that were just too clear (he could almost say that story with a completely straight face).

“You may as well get him a scarf,” says Kirkland at last, as they do a complete circuit of the floor and they stop in front of a display of long strips of cashmere and wool.

Mycroft absentmindedly reaches for one in dark blue and runs his fingers along its fringe. “Pedestrian, predictable.”

Kirkland shrugs. “And you are nothing if not unpredictable to him,” he says. Mycroft considers this idle comment as he pulls the scarf from its tray.

It takes some years for him to get used to the sight of dark blue tied closely round his younger brother’s neck, peeking above the collar of his coat.

 

-

The box of Quality Street had been for Mycroft’s secretary but he is in a spiteful mood. He pulls on the ends of a chocolate-hazelnut and watches the purple cellophane wrapped chocolate twirl. The damning label with its curvy handwriting from an old-fashioned fountain pen (and there was only one person possible who would send a box of the likes of Quality Street with a calligraphy label) is crumbled in the bin.

If he were his brother, he’d be plucking at a violin or something artistically bohemian, appropriately evocative Sturm und Drang. But Mycroft’s cello had been given to some distant cousin or to some church acquaintance’s child and besides, blistering his fingers again is not nearly so pleasant a proposition as a milk chocolate shell around sticky caramel and soft hazelnut cream.

He tells himself this and it is pleasant enough to have the lingering sweet stickiness on his tongue and his back teeth when he drops the purple cellophane next to the crumpled heap of colorful wrappers.

Mycroft smells tea and looks up from his ponderous rumination of the remaining four pieces in the box. One because it is quite good tea (judging from the strength and hint of citrus and smoke, an expensive eccentric’s blend of Ceylon and Lapsang Souchong). Two because it is two o’clock in the morning and even the most diabolically efficient public servants never bother staying up that late in their own office if at all possible.

Kirkland comes in with a tea tray, and quite a neat tea tray at that. Sugar bowl and milk jug and two cups with saucers, none of this business of bringing the carton along, not at all. Biscuits even, the prim premium sort with chocolate, a slightly higher class than even what’s normally served here.

“She will likely be all the worse to you now,” comments Kirkland, taking in the nearly empty box and pile of wrappers in a single glance.

“Let her,” says Mycroft sourly.

Kirkland pours out the tea and takes the single rickety chair in front of Mycroft’s desk. He does it all with the solemnity of a Japanese tea ceremony, preparing each cup with as much precision as some finely oiled machine. When a cup is pushed delicately towards him, Mycroft knows that the tea would be exactly to his liking. He picks up the cup reflexively but he doesn’t take a sip.

“There was nothing in that Swiss account,” says Kirkland conversationally.

“You read the report first,” replies Mycroft curtly. The tea’s heat almost burns his fingers through the thin ceramic.

“It’s been of particular concern to… some of us,” admits Kirkland. He sips his own tea carefully.

“Then you could have gone over smartly to Switzerland and prevented this mess from happening at all,” snaps Mycroft.

Kirkland gives him a withering stare. “Remind me to introduce you to him at some point.”

“The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, frightened?” jibes Mycroft rather acerbically. “Given the way your fingers just tightened in response to his name.”

“You really must meet him some time,” says Kirkland dryly.

“Ridiculous. Despite the railings of the bloody pundits and newsrags, he doesn’t have that much clout. Unless you’ve become that toothless.”

Mycroft would have gone on but for the sudden expression on Kirkland’s pale face. He’d seen Kirkland be as nastily caustic as a schoolmaster, rendering a roomful of politicians into shuffling schoolboys. But somehow, the sudden anger, the mere lifting of the upper lift to show a hint of tooth… it gives Mycroft pause. Then the man takes in a deep breath, his lips moving silently, and sits back in his chair. He slowly turns his cup in his hand.

“I… We do not move like that,” says Kirkland slowly and carefully. “We…” He pauses, ruminating over some bit of internal turmoil which Mycroft cannot bring himself to sympathize with. “We are rather more powerless than you think we are,” he finally says.

Mycroft gives Kirkland a long look. The country looks back at him, a tired old ma- no, no longer a man. Just someone tired, so very tired with the weight of too many things, big and little and petty and grand, resting on slender, crooked shoulders. England looks too tired to even be irritated or embarrassed at conceding vulnerability.

The green eyes are still bright, still inquisitive and thoughtful, but they are old, old in such a way that Mycroft finds himself just a little stymied by the paradox of their expression and the youthful face that holds them.

“You are quite the actor,” comments Mycroft, but he can’t bring himself to fully mean the spite.

Kirkland doesn’t flinch but he shakes his head and sips his tea. “You’re quite angry with yourself,” he says almost kindly at last. “You’re not used to failure.”

“Paternal comfort is not exactly called for here,” says Mycroft dryly. “Considering the difference in our physical ages.” Kirkland shrugs with one shoulder and forbears commenting.

Mycroft stares into his teacup. “They were laughing at me,” he says. “‘M.’” His fingers tighten. “What’s missing?” he asks, still looking at the swiftly cooling tea. “What did I let slip? Where did I go wrong?” The questions didn’t sting any less for having spoken them aloud.

“Or maybe they were just ahead of you this time,” says Kirkland pragmatically, without any particular sympathy.

Mycroft shakes himself and drinks the tea. It’s a little bitter than wont but it doesn’t clash with the caramel still lingering on his tongue. The bitterness meets the cloying sweetness and mixes, neither overwhelming nor clashing. It’s as perfect as a cup of tea could be and he’s not surprised, not at all, after knowing the mess of paradoxes and improbabilities that is his own country. He enjoys it while he can.

“Next time then,” Mycroft says, putting down the cup and bringing a hand to rub his temples. “Next time.”

“Tomorrow is another day,” says England agreeably, teapot already extended to refill Mycroft’s cup.

**Author's Note:**

> -I apologize for any oddities in characterization and interpretations; I’ve always been uneasy with writing anything remotely close to the mystery genre. I had a very limited idea of where to start with Mycroft, especially with no Sherlock to bounce off of.
> 
> -I started with Mycroft at about age nineteen and then ending at around age twenty-six, when he was still developing his slightly smarmy debonair air while being just young enough to be genuinely upset at being outmaneuvered (and by someone not his brother, natch!). I do think he’s a little less socially inept than Sherlock; he just genuinely dislikes people and general company. And, despite what he says, he can be just as petty, if not more than his little brother.
> 
> -Lambeth Bridge is right by Thames House, also known as the headquarters of MI5.
> 
> -If British food writer Nigel Slater is to be believed, hard toffees tend to be the favorite of very young males and very old males, never anyone in between.
> 
> -People have different ideas of what Mycroft plays (or played). So far, I’ve seen flute and piano. I’m voting cello, complex in its own manner but easily overlooked.
> 
> -I am inexplicably tickled by the idea of Mycroft having a complete and utter weakness for chocolate, typically the cheapest kinds in the shop. Though I adore Quality Street, when I can get it. /lives on the wrong side of the pond, alas
> 
> -I’m making up Switzerland’s (lack of) economic clout over England, since all I could find on the matter (from a few shallow Google searches and skimming) is that Switzerland is a tax haven for wealthy Englishmen as well as the recipient of no few investments from the British Isles (as well as the rest of Europe), at least, before this damned economic crisis. Anyone better versed in the economic-political field between the two feel free to correct me.


End file.
